Road racing
The New Year’s Day that dawned in January 2000 ushered in a new millennium. We – all the family – sat on Omaha beach to watch the sun rise from behind a bank of cloud at the start of a warm summer’s day. I was 47 years old, marathon running was behind me, and I was thinking about bike racing as an outlet for my competitive instinct.
I had had a bike since the age of eight. Cycling had always held an attraction for me. Over the previous fifteen years I had ridden to and from work on a commuter bike. The machine itself was part of this attraction: three adjacent triangles above two circles is an aesthetically pleasing shape. Bike riding is also kinder to the body than long distance running, and I have all my life enjoyed being outside in the open air.
Robert, now a teenager, also enjoyed cycling and we started riding together. The competitive sense that we both share led to regular training, so we bought ourselves racing bikes and in 2002 decided to race around Lake Taupo as a two-person team. Robert chose the hillier first half, I cruised along the flatter sections and we were back to Taupo in 5h 12m. The following year we took on K2 together: Robert did the Thames – Whitianga sector at a spanking pace and I lingered rather longer over completing the circuit back to Thames. We were both enjoying the sport and, as we took part in other bike races up and down the land, seeing much of the country – the Seabird coast, round Mt Taranaki, the rural roads of the Waikato, round the central plateau and down to the Hawkes Bay.
The difference in our respective race performances soon had us entering bike races as individual entrants. The two races – the Lake Taupo classic and K2 – became regular annual events for us. I set myself goals of completing the 160 km round Taupo in under five hours and the 193 km of K2 under seven. I achieved the goal in Taupo in 2007, crossing the finish line in 4h 41m 41s, by which time Robert had scorched the course in 4h 12m. In 2008 I was equally pleased to finish K2 in 6h 44m. I would never again complete either course faster: I put this down to then being in my mid-fifties, an age at which the hills become increasingly steeper!
But the Taupo event had by this time become like an annual pilgrimage and in 2019 I completed my fifteenth tour of the lake, thereby qualifying for the silver cadence group. Sadly, it would be three years before the event could be held again because of the coronavirus.
As we watched the Tour de France each year, I often wondered how it feels to ride a stage race, day in day out in the saddle. In 2011 I found out by riding the Tour of Northland, a four day race around the region totalling 360 km. The Tour is a sociable event; many riders with limited aspirations take part to challenge themselves and experience consecutive days racing. No problem: I lasted the distance and enjoyed the company without a sore bum! I rode the Tour five times until 2017. This event required a concerted training programme and I found I was regularly doing 10,000 km per year.
In 2017 I entered a new age group (65 – 69) at a time when the Graperide in Marlborough was a qualifying race for the UCI Gran Fondo. The Gran Fondo is billed as the world championship for amateurs: a road race held annually at different venues around the world. I rode the Graperide fast enough to receive an invitation and, as we had already made plans to spend that northern summer in Spain, France and Germany, I decided to go to Albi in southwest France for the race. I thereby got to ride the international event which I had not been able to do as a marathon. Helen joined us and we spent a wonderful weekend during a heatwave in a very beautiful part of France.
Cycle touring
At the beginning of 2011 I was lying in a hospital bed dreaming of touring the world on a bike. I was drawn to the notion of travelling around New Zealand and Europe, self-contained, enjoying the freedom and simplicity of a life on the road.
I researched and planned a suitable bike, bought the components online and had Jesse Voza built it up for me. The Surly Long Haul Trucker has a steel frame, is traditionally designed and finely machined: it trucks along all day under its own momentum, delivers a very comfortable ride, and loves weight – the more the better!
My life-long interests in the French language, art and architecture determined my initial trips through the Saintonge, Burgundy and Normandy. In 2013 I rode from Paris to Bordeaux through the beautiful landscapes of western France, spending a couple of weeks in the Saintonge region famous for its Romanesque sculpture. After crossing the Gironde estuary I explored the wine-growing area of the Médoc and visited Sabine Rozei and family near Béziers before riding down a section of the Loire valley on my return to Paris. After 2,700 km I was feeling pretty fit.
Cycle touring reduces daily life to just a few basic necessities: fine weather outside the tent opening in the morning, a market or a bakery before lunch, a lunch spot with a view, a dry towel, and most importantly, a warm shower and a glass of wine at the end of the day.
I returned to France for a tour of Burgundy in 2014, focussing on Romanesque architecture and riding through the vineyards – a shorter trip at just over 1,500 km. In 2016 I decided to follow the footsteps of Duke William (later the Conqueror) while making a tour of Normandy, and then visiting some of the great Norman cathedrals in England while riding from Durham to Canterbury. Just over 2,250 km in 35 days.
In 2018 riding the pilgrimage road from Le Puy in central France to Santiago de Compostella in Spain fulfilled a long-held dream. I had first studied this pilgrimage some forty years previously and had walked some sections of the road in 1986. The following year I was able to ride the Via Francigena, the pilgrimage road from Canterbury to Rome. I have written about both these trips elsewhere.
Mountain biking
The Tour Aotearoa had attracted my attention when it was first held in 2016. Two years later brother David had ridden the length of the country in the 2018 cohort, staying with us en route. He provided the motivation for me to take part in the 2020 event.
I bought a mountain bike – a Specialized Epic – and started training, initially on gravel surfaces and then on mountain bike trails. I had never ridden off-road before this, so knew that I would have to learn an additional set of bike handling skills to be able to manage some of the harder sections of the Tour. I spent weekends riding in the Woodhill forest and on other trails around the region.
On 21 February 2020 I set out from Cape Reinga heading south, on a beautiful dry day with a tail wind down Ninety Mile Beach. The next month was a unique adventure, a ride through the history of this young country and its ever-changing landscapes, helped by the many hospitable small communities along the route, all in stunning late summer weather. Unfortunately, the coronavirus pandemic forced the country into lockdown on 25 March, the day I crossed the Haast Pass into Central Otago. Alison picked me up and we reached Auckland just hours before the lockdown came into effect.
However, I was to finish the 2020 Tour – just before the year ended. The opportunity arose in December to return to the South Island. I restarted the route in Hokitika and rode into Bluff on 21 December. Michael marked my achievement in finishing the Tour with the gift of a wooden spoon for completing the Tour in 303 days. Cheeky!
The Epic has done more New Zealand trails since, most notably a winter trip of Alps to Ocean, and I hope that there will be more to come.
